A large number of distinct musical styles have emerged over the years, as have systems and technologies for creating, storing, and playing back music in accordance with such styles. Music creation, particularly of any quality, typically has been limited to persons who have musical training or who have expended the time and energy required to learn and play one or more instruments. Systems for creating and storing quality musical compositions have tended towards technologies that utilize significant computer processing and/or data storage. More recent examples of such technologies include compact disc (CD) audio players and players of compressed files (for instance as per the MPEG-level 3 standard), etc. Finally, there exist devices incorporating a tuner, which permit reception of radio broadcasts via electromagnetic waves, such as FM or AM radio receivers.
Electronics and computer-related technologies have been increasingly applied to musical instruments over the years. Musical synthesizers and other instruments of increasing complexity and musical sophistication and quality have been developed, a “language” for conversation between such instruments has been created, which is known as the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) standard. While MIDI-compatible instruments and computer technologies have had a great impact on the ability to create and playback or store music, such systems still tend to require substantial musical training or experience, and tend to be complex and expensive.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music employing a top-down process, where the systems/methods provide the user with a musical composition that may be modified and interacted with and played and/or stored (for later play) in order to create music that is desired by the particular user.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music that enables a user to quickly begin creating desirable music in accordance with one or a variety of musical styles, with the user modifying an auto-composed or previously created musical composition, either for a real time performance and/or for storing and subsequent playback.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which a graphical interface is provided to facilitate use of the system and increase user enjoyment of the system by having graphic information presented in a manner that corresponds with the music being heard or aspects of the music that are being modified or the like; it also is an object of the present invention to make such graphic information customizable by a user.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which a graphical interface is provided that presents a representation of a plurality of musical lanes, below each of which is represented a tunnel, in which a user may modify musical parameters, samples or other attributes of the musical composition, with such modifications preferably being accompanied by a change in a visual effect.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which music may be represented in a form to be readily modified or used in an auto-composition algorithm or the like, and which presents reduced processing and/or storage requirements as compared to certain conventional audio storage techniques.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which music may be automatically composed in a variety of distinct musical styles, where a user may interact with auto-composed music to create new music of the particular musical style, where the system controls which parameters may be modified by the user, and the range in which such parameters may be changed by the user, consistent with the particular musical style.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music based on efficient song structures and ways to represent songs, which may incorporate or utilize pseudo-random/random events in the creation of musical compositions based on such song structures and ways to represent songs.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which songs may be efficiently created, stored and/processed; preferably songs are represented in a form such that a relatively small amount of data storage is required to store the song, and thus songs may be stored using relatively little data storage capacity or a large number of songs may be stored in a given data storage capacity, and songs may be transmitted such as via the Internet using relatively little data transmission bandwidth.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which a modified MIDI representation of music is employed, preferably, for example, in which musical rule information is embedded in MIDI pitch data, musical rules are applied in a manner that utilize relative rhythmic density and relative mobility of note pitch, and in which sound samples may be synchronized with MIDI events in a desirable and more optimum manner.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which a hardware/software system preferably includes a radio tuner so that output from the radio tuner may be mixed, for example, with auto-composed songs created by the system, which preferably includes a virtual radio mode of operation; it also is an object of the present invention to provide hardware that utilizes non-volatile storage media to store songs, song lists and configuration information, and hardware that facilitates the storing and sharing of songs and song lists and the updating of sound banks and the like that are used to create musical compositions.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music that works in conjunction with a companion PC software program that enables users to utilize the resources of a companion PC and/or to easily update and/or share Play lists, components of songs, songs, samples, etc.
It is another object of the present invention to provide systems, and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music in which songs may be generated, exchanged and disseminated, preferably or potentially on a royalty free basis.
Finally, it is an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and/or playing music that may be adapted to a variety of applications, systems and processes in which such music creation may be utilized.